Burke fired as GM of Maple Leafs

The Canadiens are slated to open the NHL season on Saturday, Jan. 19 at the Bell Centre against the Toronto Maple Leafs, who will have a new general manager after Brian Burke was officially fired during a 1:45 p.m. press conference Wednesday at the Air Canada Centre.

During the press conference, Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment president Tom Anselmi announced that Dave Nonis will take over as the 14th general manager of the Leafs and that Burke, who had also been team president, will remain with the club as a senior adviser. Nonis had been the Leafs’ senior vice-president of hockey operations.

Burke was GM of the Leafs for just over four years, during which time the team never made the playoffs. The Leafs finished in 13th place in the Eastern Conference last season, when Burke fired Ron Wilson as coach and hired Randy Carlyle to replace him.

289 Comments

Burke s m.o was to rebuild mostly thru trading.eg seguin for kessel, you cant trade away top future prospects for old vet buddys,thats old school,dinosaur hockey and he was about to do it again, hence the firing.

It seems they will have to decide whether or not to burn a year of his entry level contract after 6 games instead of the normal 9 due to the shortened season. I am assuming he makes the team out of training camp, which may not happen.

After forgetting about Bettman’s press conference it finally occurred to me why the Leafs would make that announcement at this time! The PR guys are geniuses …or we are all idiots…maybe a bit of both..but hey at least I know am an idiot who totally preffered to spend the day thoeorizing over Burke than being ticked at the NHL.

Why do the players need so long to ratify this deal? With electronic voting, couldn’t they get it done tonight? Let’s be honest, most of them won’t even read the MOU, it will just be “click” yes, then back to training camp and video games.

Alot of ppl. here are excited (or NOT that enthusiastic!) about Brian Burke’s firing. Honestly, what I think should be fired is that Commissioner who just got off the press-con a moment ago saying “I AM SORRY” to all of us fans.

I am more interested to see Gary Bettman’s job in trouble than for a disgruntled GM like Brian Burke who never had his work cut out for him after 4 years in the Laffs.

Now with this Kovalchuck issue and other Russian players who seem to like the KHL, this last lockout caused more damage to the business and intl’ relations between Europe and North American Hockey markets.

BTW, is Markov already here in Montreal? If not and he’s embracing Mama Russia w/ Love due to KHL fever, well that’s gonna be an issue for MB as well!

aj, if there were any doubt about the influence Jeremy aka Jerry Jacobs had with Bettman,these negotiations and even this presser leaves no doubt.
I would hope that revenue suffers to a point where the more moderate owners kick him out in the streets.

IMO, Bettman needs to resign of get fired! You’re right though, the less revenue, the higher the chances his day job could put a strain on him. Just watching him do the presser and answering questions w/ the media, he’s in a lot of pressure right now. He doesn’t even like answering the media nor do the press con at all just by his facial reaction.

I can’t say good luck with Bettman cuz’ I’m sure everybody doesn’t like him at this point. His luck really just ran out of him.

Dang, Burke is gone! Rumour had it he was about to pull the trigger on a deal with the Habs, sending the Leafs first rounders from 2014 to 2018 here for Gomez.
They fired him because he didn’t want to throw in Komisarek.